LA Dodgers: Bryan Stow and the Specter of Violence in Sports

On Tuesday, the LA Dodgers played their arch rivals, the San Francisco Giants, with a chance to go over .500 for the first time since May 3. The starting pitchers were a recent two-time Cy Young winner, Tim Lincecum, and this year’s likely NL Cy Young winner, Clayton Kershaw.

On paper it made for a great matchup, and indeed it was, with Kershaw turning in a dominant performance in a 2-1 Dodger win.

Yet the 56,000 seat Dodger Stadium recorded an official attendance of only 32,526. Had anyone bothered to count the vast expanses of empty seats, the actual total would have surely been much lower.

There’s a good reason for that.

Six months ago, on Opening Day, Bryan Stow, a paramedic and father of two, was apparently targeted for wearing a San Francisco Giants jersey and beaten into a coma in the stadium's parking lot.

He remains hospitalized with severe neurological impairment, and the brutality that left him near death still resonates on game days.

Despite the team’s excellent form over the last month, the Dodgers’ attendance has fallen 37.5 percent from last season.

While some of that drop can be attributed to a boycott of McCourt's ownership by diehards, the looming specter of violence cannot be discounted. The truth is that Dodger Stadium is no longer a welcoming environment for families. 

Not that this is a new phenomenon.

A British friend of mine has an anecdote about his first trip to a soccer game as a young boy. He was sitting on his father’s shoulders to get a view above the throng—these were the days before all-seater stadiums—when someone, likely a rival supporter, threw a brick directly at his head.

Thankfully his father reacted quickly and neither of them was injured, but one thought has plagued me since I first heard the story: that brick had to land somewhere.

If this sort of horrifying behavior was ever the exception, it has seemingly become the rule for many sports worldwide. Hooliganism, fighting in the stands and Stow’s beating are sad realities for fans of all ages. It’s saddest of all for the children.

Sporting passions and dreams of becoming a professional athlete are a near-universal part of childhood.

Even in an age when most of our idols on the field prove less than heroic off of it, these dreams are applauded and nurtured because of the powerful lessons sports teach and the ideals towards which they help us strive.

At their best, sports are an expression of our capacity to push the bounds of human potential, and a reason to rejoice in celebration of that potential.

They bring us together in success and failure, and are perhaps our greatest tools for transcending the barriers—social, cultural, linguistic or otherwise—that divide us.

At their worst, however, they amplify those same divisions. Team allegiances become a source of almost nationalistic pride.

When blood boils on the field it frequently spills over into the stands, as it did on March 31 at Dodger Stadium, or, more recently, during a preseason soccer game in Istanbul.

With Fenerbahce at the center of a corruption and match-fixing scandal which has cost them a spot in this season's Champion's League and seen their chairman imprisoned, disillusioned fans rioted and stormed the pitch during a game against Shakhtar Donetsk, creating a dangerous situation and forcing the game to be abandoned in the 67th minute.

As punishment, the Turkish Football Federation (TFF) initially ruled that Fenerbahce would have to play two games behind closed doors. 

The idea of playing games behind closed doors is nothing new in the world of soccer—racist abuse of players by fans has made this a favorite sanction in Italy—but what happened next is unheard of.

In a startlingly progressive decision, the TFF amended their ruling 24 hours before kickoff to allow women and supervised children under 12 to attend the first game. The team distributed free tickets and packed the stands with more than 40,000 fans.

Ultimately Fenerbahce could only manage a 1-1 draw with Manisaspor, but while what happened on the field was uninspired, what happened in the stands was beautiful. Fighting and rioting were replaced by singing and cheering, and for once all of the fans simply reveled in the spectacle of the sport that they love. 

Far be it from me to suggest that only men can commit heinous acts or that it’s a viable option to ban them from professional sporting events under normal circumstances, but Fenerbahce’s unique approach does provide some food for thought. 

If we encourage our children’s interest in sports, surely we should also ensure that our stadiums are places where they, and indeed everyone, can feel safe. The real issue is how to go about doing that. 

Teams can increase police presence as the Dodgers have done. However, being swarmed by hundreds of police officers does less to promote a feeling of safety than to raise concern that something is about to go terribly wrong.

Truthfully, I don’t know what the answer is. What I do know is this: Someday I’d like to take my son or daughter to Dodger Stadium, or, with any luck, to Anfield. 

When that day comes, I hope the experience isn’t sullied by fear or by the anger of a few small-minded people who have forgotten what drew them to sports in the first place: beauty, joy and the love of a good game.